Scottish Authorities Research Articles

Religious Comprehension in Scotland, 1689–1695

This article discusses how religious comprehension was promoted by the Scottish authorities after the revolution of 1688–9 to reach a compromise between the nation's two main religious groups: the Presbyterians and the Episcopalians. Unlike the failed attempt to enact comprehension in England in 1689, in Scotland five attempts were made from 1689 to 1694 to accommodate Episcopalians into the Church. The article argues that comprehension forced the Scots to confront the practical limits of their commitment to religious uniformity, and was central to their transition from a Reformed nation that cherished uniformity to one that begrudgingly accepted the existence of pluralism.

Discursive and Narrative Practices of the Scottish Authorities in the Framework of the Implementation of the Agenda of National and Territorial Self-Determination of Scotland

The article analyzes the narrative and discursive practices of political forces aimed at achieving national-territorial sovereignty on the example of Scotland. The authors emphasize the relevance of the task of analyzing the reasons that allow some regions and peoples to be ficult to achieve sovereignty. According to the authors, it is precisely this context that suggests the need for a scientific understanding of the narrative and discursive practices of those political forces that implement the agenda of national-territorial self-determination in the real political process. The purpose of the study is to analyze the narrative and discursive practices of the Scottish Government and the Scottish National Party, the strategy and tactics of which are determined by the peculiarities of Scottish nationalism and the specifics of the identity of the Scots. Research methodology : to achieve this goal, the authors used a set of methods, among which the socio-cultural approach should be particularly noted, which makes it possible in the process of political analysis to consider the socio-political space through the prism of modern world and local civilizational processes, where the political sphere is influenced by socio-cultural factors. As a result of the analysis , the authors came to the conclusion that the discursive and narrative practices of Scottish nationalists contribute to the awareness of indigenous Scots of their own national specifics, which does not conflict with the identities of ethno-confessional minorities living in Scotland.

Allan Pinkerton: Informed Scot or Scottish Informer?

Allan Pinkerton (1819–1884) has a conflicted legacy. To some, the founder of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency (PNDA) pioneered law and order on the American frontier, upheld principles of racial equality, and prepared the way for better public police forces including the FBI. To others, Pinkerton betrayed the values of his Scottish youth: he had been a champion of militant workers in Scotland, and participated in revolutionary uprisings in Wales and England, yet was instrumental in crushing organised labour in the United States. In truth, Pinkerton never played a part in Wales’ Newport uprising, and took with him, when he crossed the Atlantic in 1842, knowhow about repression that he had acquired on his native soil. He may have learned about informers because he was one of their victims, or he may have promoted labour espionage in Pennsylvania in the 1870s because he had been himself an informer before he emigrated. The Scottish authorities’ deliberate abstinence from record-keeping and the serial, defensive destruction of PNDA records mean it is impossible to prove or disprove the informer hypothesis, but the role of the informer in Scottish political culture does help to explain Pinkerton’s behaviour and apparent hypocrisy.

Non-Institutional Forms of Political Participation of Muslim Youth in Modern Scotland

The article examines the main forms and socio-cultural features of the participation of Muslim youth in Scotland in non-institutional politics. As their research goal, the authors chose to identify the mechanisms through which political processes specific to the Scottish context (different from the general British or, for example, the English context) generate various forms of political participation of young adherents of Islam. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study was a significant layer of empirical data (mainly Scottish), comprehended through an interpretive paradigm, which allowed the authors to analyze the non-institutionalized political experience of young Muslims, finding patterns in how Muslim youth perceive and construct the social world around them. The result of the study was an understanding that the strengthening of the “Islamic factor” in the social and political life of Scotland is explained not only by the growth of the Muslim population, but also by the obvious support that the Scottish authorities provide to adherents of Islam. According to the authors, the issue of national and state independence, the specificity of Scottish nationalism, the attractiveness of the political platform of the Scottish National Party for ethno-confessional minorities became the most important primary factors that predetermined the active entry of Scottish Muslim youth into politics. The main conclusion in this article was the idea that the specific socio-political and sociocultural contexts of Scotland create appropriate forms of political participation of young Muslims. Despite the prevailing opinion that Scottish Muslim youth are interested mainly in international events, the authors show a clearly traceable institutional and non-institutional involvement of young Muslims in national and local political issues in Scotland. According to the authors, the non-institutional political participation of young Scottish followers of Islam is manifested in such forms as social movements, activism and charity, and volunteer work.

The Identity of Scottish Muslims as a Socio-cultural Manifestation of Globalization in the Domestic Political Processes of Modern Scotland

The article considers the identity of Scottish Muslims as a non-traditional for Scotland sociocultural manifestation of globalization of regional socio-political processes. The relevance of this topic is determined by the fact that the number of Muslims as a part of population of Scotland has been growing rapidly over the past decade. In this regard, the range of questions about the future national sovereignty of Scotland is significantly expanding, requiring the search for scientific, theoretical and practical answers. The research goal of the article is to analyze the influence of Islamic identity on domestic political processes in Scotland. To achieve this goal, the authors rely on general logic, institutional, stating factual and comparative methods used in political science. In addition, the article uses the data of socio-anthropological and psychological research conducted on the subject by foreign colleagues. As a result of the research, the authors identified the activation the Scottish authorities’ activities, who are forced (within the framework of internal policy) to develop comprehensive measures aimed at Scots who confess Islam. The article deals with the issues of political participation of Muslims, Islamic extremism and others, the practical solution of which, according to the authors, is connected with the problem of Muslims integration into the Scottish society (traditionally Christian). In this regard, the authors attach particular importance to the peculiarities of Islamic identity in the modern Scottish society. The authors come to the conclusion that this identity is a socio-cultural manifestation of global civilizational processes and it contains plenty of internal contradictions caused by a number of objective reasons, the main of which is the discrepancy between two civilizational codes: the traditional (native Scottish, Christian, European) and the non-traditional (brought from the outside, Muslim, Asian).

Caring for Soldiers, Veterans and Families in Scotland, 1638–1651

AbstractScotland was overwhelmed with injured servicemen and their families during the wars of the 1640s. Centralized attempts to help support war veterans and, later, their families were ambitious but continued to rely upon local church sessions to collect, distribute and monitor charitable payments. Using local parish‐based manuscript material, this article shows how this system proved remarkably successful in providing financial support with one striking caveat: Unlike similar schemes in England and some areas of the continent, Scottish authorities only intended payments to injured servicemen and their families as a form of supplementary relief rather than permanent pensions. Moreover, despite local calls for further financial support, the central government made no effort to wrestle away the management of charitable activity from the parish setting. Veterans and their families continued to rely on informal support from family, friends and neighbours within a remarkably local charitable context. Such networks draw attention to the limited aims of official support in the seventeenth century and the necessity for it to co‐exist with, and co‐opt, a variety of less formal measures of charitable help.

SC22.04 How Can Immunotherapy Be Implemented in a Cost-Effective Strategy?

SC22.04 How Can Immunotherapy Be Implemented in a Cost-Effective Strategy?

Fuel poverty in Scotland: Refining spatial resolution in the Scottish Fuel Poverty Indicator using a GIS-based multiple risk index

Fuel poverty describes a complex interaction between households with low income and energy inefficiency. The Scottish Executive has charged local Scottish authorities with the task of eradicating fuel poverty by 2016. In order to direct investment and tackle fuel poverty, a local authority must know which areas are more likely to contain fuel poor households. Currently, local area fuel poverty indicators, based on small area statistics, are used to identify target areas. This paper proposes an innovative methodology for refinement of the Scottish Fuel Poverty Indicator using GIS as a framework for integrating census data with georeferenced energy efficiency data on local housing stock. This allows a multi-scale mapping of fuel poverty risk at both a census output area level and an individual dwelling level. The proposed methodology highlights small areas, and households, possibly susceptible to fuel poverty previously masked by the aggregation of statistics to large geographic units.

What children know and can do when they start school and how this varies between countries

This large-scale study describes what children know and can do when they start school in Scotland. The description became possible because a third of Scottish Authorities are involved in a single, broadly based, on-entry baseline assessment of children. The study also looked at variations by home background, sex, age and pre-school experience within Scotland. Comparisons were then made with the cognitive development of children starting school in England, New Zealand and Western Australia, concentrating on children whose first language was English. Surprising differences were found between Scotland and other countries. New Zealand also stood out on some measures. The results are discussed in terms of pre-school provision and what on-entry assessment can and cannot tell us.

Forging the compact of church and state in the development of Catholic education in late nineteenth-century Scotland

Introduction: the contexts of Catholic schooling As post-devolution Scotland passes the milestone of a third Scottish parliamentary election, the question of state-suppo rted Catholic education, and the peculiar nature of the 1918 UK l egislation that underpins it, is once again the subject of intense scrutiny. Emboldened by devolution and fuelled by a wave of progressive UK and European law concerned with issues of equality and diversity , opponents of separate Catholic schools have renewed their demands for the provisions of the 1918 Act to be reviewed or, indee d, abolished. With the ninetieth anniversary of the passage of the Act approaching, influential commentators from across the political spectrum have argued that its principal terms reflect the social and religious controversies of a distant era, increasingly incong ruent with the inclusive culture of a multiethnic and mostly secul ar twenty-first century Scotland. 1 The character and scale of the objections currentl y levelled at the continued existence of Catholic sch ools in Scotland suggests that reconsideration of the transactions b etween Church and State that led to the signing of the 1918 Act is pe rhaps overdue ‐ especially as a realignment of the relationship bet ween the two forces seems currently to be well advanced. This article examines a particular phase in the rel ationship between the Catholic Church and the Scottish state authorit ies with reference to the development and reform of the Catholic schools system leading up to the watershed settlement of the 1918 Education A ct. It analyses the collaboration of Church and State in the context of wider developments in the culture of Scottish education in the period 1872‐1918, focusing particularly on the experience of Glasgow and the e mergence there of a fully state-supported network of Catholic schools. It brings to bear on the material from this period an interpretation tha t places greater emphasis than previous studies on wider state attit udes to institutional religion and changing perceptions of the role of Ch urches in the provision of mass education in a modern society. Th e concordat struck between the Scottish authorities and the Catholic C hurch in Scotland regarding the governance of schools in the early pa rt of the twentieth

Fabricating nobility ? Genealogy and social mobility among franco-scottish families in the early modern period

Seventeenth century noble families in many European countries found their elite status challenged by individuals from non-noble backgrounds who had earned favour through their aptitude for commerce, administration and invention. The rise of the meritocracy was as rapid in France as it was elsewhere. In a bid to curb new ennoblements, the French government sought proof of noble origin from new applicants to the noble classes. This paper will review the process of application to the Scottish authorities who were asked to issue ‘birthbriefs’ to confirm the genealogies of both their countrymen abroad and foreigners claiming to be of Scottish descent. In particular it will test French cases to establish the truth of the claims made and the motives for upholding and granting such documentation. It will also test claims of Scottish decent by French families which remain unsubstantiated by the Scottish authorities or, in the case of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, almost certainly spurious.

Going Local: Working in Communities and Neighbourhoods, John Pierson, Abingdon, Routledge, 2008, pp. xvi + 195, ISBN 978 0 415 32840 1, 19.99

Community and neighbourhood social work, once seen as a minority approach to social problems (Barclay, 1982), has returned to the mainstream agenda, in no small part, as a result of governmental policies. For the past ten years, the UK governments have promoted social inclusion and anti-poverty programmes and initiatives, which advocate the participation of local people (and social work clients) in the planning, delivery and evaluation of public services. Moreover, since the early 1990s, service user groups have been encouraged to form and lobby for control over resources. In this context, Pierson's book is relevant and, indeed, overdue. There is more than one generation of social workers who were not brought up in generic practice, based in local authorities committed to community social work (as, for example, in Scottish authorities prior to 1990). Their social work practice was generally not informed by the experience of working in localities (or ‘patches’) with all service user groups and using a wide range of methods, including groupwork and community work. For those generations of students, practitioners and managers, Pierson provides a highly readable and easily understood account of the basics of community and neighbourhood practice, both conceptually and in terms of practice within specific fields (children and families, young people and anti-social behaviour, older people, and work with people of different faiths and ethnicity).

Be Well! Jewish Immigrant Health and Welfare in Glasgow, 1860-1914 (review)

Reviewed by: Be Well! Jewish Immigrant Health and Welfare in Glasgow, 1860-1914 Alan M. Kraut Kenneth E. Collins . Be Well! Jewish Immigrant Health and Welfare in Glasgow, 1860-1914. East Linton, Scotland: Tuckwell Press, 2001. xiv + 194 pp. Ill. $U.S. 19.95; $Can. 29.95; £12.99 (paperbound, 1-86232-129-9). While my Eastern European Jewish grandfather was bending over his sewing machine in a garment shop in the Whitechapel district of London, trying to decide whether to stay or to continue his journey to the United States, others just like him were similarly engaged in Glasgow. Kenneth Collins, a Glasgow physician and research fellow at the University of Glasgow's Centre for the History of Medicine, treats the "health and welfare" of the Jewish immigrant community in the Scottish city during the peak period of migration, 1860-1914. Immigration is a fertile field for historians of medicine and public health, as suggested by Howard Markel's, Amy Fairchild's, and my own U.S. studies and Lara Marks's book on London. While Collins does not offer here a fresh analytical scheme for scholarly analysis, he contributes to the existing literature by asking familiar questions in a new setting. He draws on a rich array of sources, government reports, data from synagogues and Jewish voluntary organizations, and Jewish newspapers. The title of the book, Be Well! is the English translation of the Yiddish parting benediction, zei gezunt. Health was very important to Eastern European Jews because in the world they came from it was precious and rare. According to Collins, things were little better in Glasgow. Long hours of work in congested shops and inadequate rest and medical care in similarly crowded living quarters compromised the health and well-being of industrial workers of every ethnicity in Glasgow. A plentiful supply of robust workers was a great advantage to an industrial economy; unhealthy workers were not. Logically, it behooved Scottish authorities to create services and institutions to care for those suffering from infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and trachoma, as well as workers' needy families. However, most of the burden fell on local authorities, who lacked sufficient resources. In Glasgow, immigrant groups were left to care for their own. Self-help had long been a credo for Jews in Europe, who hoped to deflect anti-Semitism by not imposing on the host community. Collins shows how such self-help in Glasgow was hampered by the small size of the Jewish community, which never exceeded 15,000 even during the peak period of immigration. The number of affluent Jews positioned to make large charitable contributions was insufficient to support a Jewish hospital, nor could the Jewish community maintain an old-age home until the mid-twentieth century. Still, assimilated Jews such as those in Glasgow's Garnethill Synagogue endeavored to help the poorer, more recent arrivals moving into the immigrant enclave around Gorbals, south of the River Clyde. Collins also shows how a small Jewish community such as Glasgow's had to negotiate even ritual observance, which was not true of the larger communities. What Glasgow's Jews could not provide to their own because of insufficient numbers and affluence, they sought through negotiation with the non-Jewish [End Page 142] community. Although Jews received sound medical treatment, many were troubled by the absence of kosher food in Glasgow institutions. Finally, in 1914 the Merryflatts Poorhouse agreed to a kosher kitchen under rabbinical supervision. Still, other institutions such as the Victorian Infirmary would not allow kosher food brought from Merryflatts or elsewhere, denying that Jews wanted anything other than the "ordinary food" (p. 92). If resources for assistance were in short supply, Glasgow's Jewish community nevertheless succeeded in maintaining a high level of health and hygiene, especially among the young. Collins cites a 1911 report attributing the lower instances of certain infectious diseases among Jewish children in Glasgow to the care they received from their mothers, as well as the services made available by Jewish organizations, concluding: "The women of Glasgow might learn a good deal from Jewish mothers" (p. 79). However hard mothers might try, though, the infant mortality rate among Glasgow Jews was high...

Challenging Sectarianism in Scotland: The Prism of Racism

This article is an essay in change in attitudes to sectarian prejudice, drawing on the Herald and other Scottish newspapers in order to identify key developments in the three years between 1999 and 2002. In June 1999, Cara Henderson's published a passionate letter of protest against sectarian hatred in football, in August James Macmillan gave his renowned lecture about anti-Catholic bigotry . In November 2002, Jack McConnell, First Minister, called in the giant football clubs the Old Firm of Celtic and Rangers to demand that they take concerted action against the violence of their supporters, and threw his weight behind proposals to make 'religious prejudice* an aggravating factor in crime. It was inevitable that the new Scottish authorities would, at some time, face challenge about sectarianism, the component in Scotland's political culture that is more sensitive than any other. It was also inevitable that they would have to deal, at some time, with the scale of violence that surrounds Celtic and Rangers, the giant football clubs in Glasgow, each with their distinctively sectarian affiliations (Finn 2000). However, what is interesting about these three years is the development of centripetal pull. Politicians who stood aside in 1999 were pulled towards the centre of a momentum that was gathering pace.

Native Lords and the Church in Thirteenth-Century Strathearn, Scotland

The thirteenth century in Scotland witnessed a determined effort on the part of the crown and its ecclesiastical officials to initiate a series of reforms comparable to those that had so deeply altered the social and religious life of England and continental Europe. An important aspect of the transformation that occurred in Scotland was the consolidation of a network of parish churches throughout the kingdom. Scottish authorities, however, encountered several obstacles in their attempts to create parishes, and especially to assign sufficient revenues to them. In the lordships controlled by old Celtic families in particular the Church's designs sometimes clashed with the interests of great native land-holders and their kinsmen. In many of these lordships the process of parish formation was ultimately the result of negotiation and litigation which saw the Church forced to accommodate the claims of Celtic landowners. This article examines, in the context of the native lordship of Strathearn, the struggles that marked the creation and consolidation of some parishes in thirteenth-century Scotland.

European Union information: an investigation of need amongst public library users in three Scottish authorities

Reports results of a British Library funded study, undertaken by the School of Information and Media, Robert Gordon University with the help of three public libraries services (Aberdeen, Glasgow and Moray), to investigate the provision of European Union (EU) information in UK public libraries, and in particular the implementation of the Public Information Relay (PIR), a European Commission sponsored initiative designed to bring EU information closer to the UK public through the existing public library network. Focuses on one particular element of the project: a questionnaire survey of the user needs of public library users on their past use of public libraries and other sources of European information. Results indicated a growing actual and predicted level of need for European information and an awareness of the potential significance of EU information: which bodes well for the future of PIR. However, results also demonstrated the significance to public library users of European information for educational, business related and employment reasons, none of which are seen to lie within the remit of PIR, which is seen as focusing on the ‘general citizen’. (The full results of the study are published as a British Library Research and Innovation Report (no. 19) and in an abridged form in Library Management, 18, (1) 1997, 7-41).

European Union Information:an Investigation of Need Amongst Public Library Users in Three Scottish Authorities

European Union Information:an Investigation of Need Amongst Public Library Users in Three Scottish Authorities

Impact in Scotland of UK and EC Sewage Legislation

ABSTRACTThe EC Directive (91/271/EEC) concerning urban waste water treatment has far‐reaching financial and technological implications for local authorities in Scotland which are responsible for sewerage. Increased capital consent limits and additional financial assistance from central government are essential if the requirements of the legislation are to be met.Although the Directive is welcomed in general terms, the sections of the legislation dealing with the identification of sensitive waters and the provision of primary treatment for coastal discharges to less sensitive waters are of limited environmental significance in Scotland.The elimination of sewage sludge disposal at sea will create severe difficulties for Scottish authorities as a high percentage of sewage sludge is currently disposed of at sea. Each of the main alternative disposal options presents environmental, financial and technical problems and, in the case of incineration, the certainty of widespread unpopularity with the public.

The Value of Insectivorous Birds

THE reflections in a letter to NATURE (August 15) on shortcomings in the administration of the Wild Birds' Protection Acts, in so far as they relate to the eggs of the lapwing, which, it is stated, appear on the prohibited lists of only eight Scottish authorities, are now happily at variance with the facts. Far from such being the state of the case, at the present time and for more than ten years past no fewer than twenty-eight—out of thirty-four—Scottish county councils have protected the eggs of this bird, after certain dates which permit of only the first layings being taken for food purposes.

Lecture I. Conditions in Life Policies

In the lectures which I delivered last year to the Actuarial Society of Edinburgh, I dealt with the representations in the proposal for insurance which usually form the subject of one of the conditions in the policy. In the present lecture I propose dealing with the other usual conditions in life policies, including the statutory condition as to insurable interest, the conditions relating to the payment of premiums, and lastly, the conditions excepting certain risks from the policy in respect either of locality, occupation, or cause of death. I shall also deal incidentally with the powers of local agents to waive a forfeiture of any of the conditions of the policy. In regard to the references to the American authorities, perhaps I should explain that I have in all cases referred to English or Scottish authorities where there were any, and have only used American cases as ancillary to our own, or where there was no English or Scottish authority. In some cases I have referred to American authorities by way of contrast, but when this is the case, I have always explained the differences between the American law and our own.